Work stopped at noon on St Augustine's Day. They normally worked from
sunrise to sunset, six days a week, so they needed the rest they got on holydays. He was interested in the challenge of making soft, round
shapes out of hard rock. His chisels slipped and dig in too deeply,
spolling the shapes. But once he had got to know the lump of rocks in
front of him he could transform it. He was beginning to feel that the
decorative carving demanded by his master was too easy. He wanted to
carve natural-looking foliage, flexble and irregular, and copy the
different shapes of real leaves, oak and ash and birch. Most of all he
wanted to carve scenes from stories, Adam and Eva and Day of Judgment ...
monsters, devils and saints, but he did not dare to ask.